Saturday

December 30th, Mad Monk Day

The 3rd card of the Major Arcana is The Empress, symbolizing creative intelligence. She is the perfect woman, the ultra-feminine, Mother Earth nurturer, who embodies our dreams, hopes and aspirations. This card represents positive traits of charm, grace and unconditional love, but also negative traits of vanity and affectation, as well as an intolerance for imperfection.

Andover paid widow Rebecca Johnson, free on bail, for her past duties of sweeping the meeting house and ringing its bell. The town also reinstated her for the coming year, though she still had to appear at the next Superior Court to answer the witchcraft charge.

It was on this day in 1994 that a person obviously possessed by a demon, murdered two woman in cold blood. Two women were shot by an activist who described himself as a pro-lifer. Obviously, he wasn't Pro-Life, so what was he?

Well, according to The Army of God who has a rather provincial website page that looks like it hasn't been updated since the 1994 MURDER, John Salvi was just, "Thinking
about the babies being murdered in these two death camps was too much
for John to bear without doing what he could to save their lives. He did
the right thing and stopped the killing of the children."

On this date in the year 1916, Rasputin (a famous Russian mystic
monk,occultist, and court magician) was assassinated by his enemy Prince
Feliks Yusupov. Rasputin, who was drowned in the frozen Neva
River,presaged his own death.

Rasputin was killed on December 30, 1916
(December 17 in the Russian calendar in use at the time), in the
basement of the Moika Palace, the Saint Petersburg residence of Prince
Felix Yussupov, the richest man in Russia and the husband of the Czar’s
only niece, Irina. His battered body was discovered in the Neva River a
few days later.

In the decade prior, Rasputin had risen rapidly through Russian
society, starting as an obscure Siberian
peasant-turned-wandering-holy-man and then becoming one of the most
prominent figures in the Czar’s inner circle. Born in 1869 in the
village of Pokrovskoye, on the Tura river that flows eastward from the
Ural Mountains, where Europe meets Asia in Siberia. He seemed destined
for an ordinary life, despite a few conflicts in his youth with local
authorities for unruly behavior. He married a local woman, Praskovya
Dubrovina, became the father of three surviving children, Maria, Dmitri
and Varvara, and worked on his family’s farm.

Rasputin’s life changed in 1892, when he spent months at a
monastery, putting him on the path to international renown. Despite his
later nickname, “The Mad Monk,” Rasputin never took Holy Orders. Men in
Rasputin’s position usually gave up their past lives and relationships
but Rasputin continued to see his family – his daughters later lived
with him in Saint Petersburg – and support his wife financially.